What does social intelligence mean to you?
Using Social media data to amplify and support the planning process. It’s mandatory - at this point - that every brand has a presence and actively monitors its reputation online and it's getting more complicated with every change in the industry. Social intelligence plays a significant role in the planning process and is used in many di?erent ways to bring campaigns or ideas to life. It can help understand content performance insights for creative and digital teams, uncover opportunities for new ideas sourced various audiences or help internal communications teams to help manage a crisis moment.
What skills do social listeners need to succeed?
Persistence, curiosity and communication. Social listening is about following the data trails to gain an understanding of what is moving discussion and engagement. A comment theme, a news headline (real or fake), UGC or an influencer can change opinion about a product, service or company. An analyst needs to follow those threads for opportunities and be able to communicate that to teams and decision makers.
Biggest challenge to social intelligence adoption in brands?
Knowing the right data sources and what kinds of insights they can provide. That’s what teams like mine are here to help with. Comment sections on owned channel social posts can be vary vastly on di?erent platforms, while social listening can be entirely di?erent. Knowing where to look and what to look out for is key to driving more and more success internally and that’s why an analyst, who is dedicated to a business line can work with teams to help understand their questions and then discover what opportunities exist for messaging or content.
Favourite use case for social intelligence and what decisions can the insight help support?
I love how passionate the Disney fanbase can be and how relevant the brand is in people’s hearts. The love for characters, both popular and beloved, franchises and the IP provides ideas for teams and lets their voices be heard. It also allows for new places for the brand to show up to share the love of storytelling that is at the brand’s core.
What piece of advice would you give to those looking to do more with social data than just brand tracking or campaign monitoring?
Compare it with other data sources to see how much of an impact it has. See what it can do to move a brand’s reputation in research, or inspire behavior like in Google Search trends. Looking at other types of data like product reviews too can help inspire new content insights or uncover issues that need to be addressed.
Gen AI in social listening: hype or helpful?
Right now, hype and a bit of a scary landscape truthfully, but full of hope and promise. Soon it will be more than helpful and teams need to think about how to incorporate into workflows sooner than later. AI can help optimize queries, identify and categorize themes and create initial summaries, but a human is still needed for context and verification.
If we could grant you one wish to help your social intelligence practice succeed, what would you ask for?
Where do I start. A tool that will keep up with the fracturing social landscape, advancing our automated reporting needs even further and a more e?icient way to clean datasets would be a good addition.
If you were to start your social intelligence team from scratch what three things would you do first?
First, create a report template and start with a measurement framework to align on goals and KPIs and a way to read it. Second, bring tech and digital teams along to install tools and processes to get APIs and the right toolsets in place. Lastly, get in as much training as possible as it always good to start with fundamentals.
What are you looking forward to in social listening for 2025?
Mainly seeing the next phases in the evolution of how AI will improve processes to help identify trends, spot emerging insights or to help write/clean queries. I’d love to see the TikTok API open up further and newer social platforms (like Discord or Threads) emerge on tools as well. We’ve been monitoring trends and practices in video listening, fake content and others and are excited about how social intelligence will inevitably evolve.
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